Celebrating the Offspring's enduring impact

Back in 1994, the thought of selling anywhere near 100,000 records seemed unimaginable to the Offspring.

After forming in 1984 and gigging consistently throughout Southern California, the Orange County quartet released its self-titled debut in 1989 on Nemesis Records. It went on to sell about 3,000 copies.

Two years later, they signed to Epitaph Records, an independent L.A. label owned by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz and home to several other budding mainstays: Pennywise, NOFX, Rancid. That outlet issued Ignition, the Offspring’s sophomore effort, in ’92. It eventually crossed the 10,000-sold mark, though at the official release party at Goodies, a punk haven in Fullerton that is now the Latin club Alebrije, the band drew only about 100 fans, friends and family members.

After a long tour that included a European stint with NOFX, the guys returned home tired but determined to begin working on a third album.

“We just wanted it to do better than whatever Ignition had done,” guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman recalled as we kicked back last month in the band’s rehearsal and recording space in Huntington Beach. He remembers making bets that they’d hit between 70,000 and 140,000 copies, tops.

“We didn’t know if it was going to be our last record or just another one in a string of them. I was still a janitor for the Garden Grove School District, Dexter (Holland, vocals) was close to finishing up his Ph.D., Greg (Kriesel, bass) had already finished school – but were we going to have to get real jobs?”

That next album was the appropriately titled Smash, which arrived April 8, 1994 – the same day Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s body was found. Everything changed after that, as the disc spawned one radio staple after another: “Come Out and Play,” “Bad Habit,” “Self Esteem.” In time, the record would go platinum six times over in the U.S. and sell millions more worldwide. That success also landed the Offspring’s music videos, already a hit in the extreme-sports scene, on MTV – even as Wasserman continued to sweep floors at an elementary school.

“The thing to get across the most here is that it was so unexpected,” Holland says. “Noodles was a janitor. That explains it better than anything else. We were literally on MTV and kids were walking up to him like, ‘Hey, Mr. Noodles we saw you on MTV this morning’ – as he’s cleaning up vomit.

“When we started, we were just this punk rock band from Garden Grove, so it wasn’t in the cards for us to become this big band. It was never supposed to happen. Somehow it did, and believe me it took us all by surprise.”

Twenty years since Smash injected the Offspring into the mainstream, the band can look back on three decades of surviving in the trenches together. Six more studio albums have followed. They have endured countless world tours and festivals, received dozens of platinum and gold records and other accolades that fill the walls of their rehearsal space – even in the bathroom.

And tonight they will get another prize to show off, as Holland, Wasserman, Kriesel and drummer Pete Parada will be honored for their contributions with the Impact Award at the OC Music Awards ceremony at City National Grove of Anaheim. Past recipients include Social Distortion, Lit, Sugar Ray, Thrice and the Vandals.

“It’s very flattering,” Holland says. “It’s amazing, but I also don’t believe it. The bands that are my heroes – like T.S.O.L., the Ramones, Dead Kennedys or AC/DC, bands that are very, very famous – those bands are on a pedestal for me. I can’t picture myself being that to somebody else.

I do hear people coming up and saying that Smash was their first record, or Americana. So that’s really cool. Maybe we have had some sort of impact. But it’s just too hard for me to believe it.”

The group’s last album, 2012’s Days Go By, completed its contract with Columbia Records, leaving the Offspring free agents – something Dexter and Noodles agree is as terrifying as it is exciting. For now, they have worked out a couple new tracks and just finished an animated video due out in the next few months. They’re taking things one single at a time, rather than feeling pressured to produce another full album straight away.

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